Mark Bradley and Marilyn Young, “Making Sense of the Vietnam Wars” (Oxford UP, 2008)

Mark Bradley and Marilyn Young, “Making Sense of the Vietnam Wars” (Oxford UP, 2008)

What to think about the Vietnam War? A righteous struggle against global Communist tyranny? An episode in American imperialism? A civil war into which the United States blindly stumbled? And what of the Vietnamese perspective? How did they–both North and South–understand the war? Mark Bradley and Marilyn Young have assembled a crack team of historians to consider (or rather reconsider) these questions in Making Sense of the Vietnam Wars: Transnational and International Perspectives (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). The book is part of the National History Center‘s Reinterpreting History series. The pieces in it are wide-ranging: some see the war from the heights of international diplomacy, others from the hamlets of the Mekong Delta. They introduce new themes, for example, the role of American racial stereotypes in the conflict. More than anything else, however, they are nuanced. Their authors provide no simple answers because there are none. You will not find easy explanations, good guys and bad guys, or ideological drum-beating in these pages. What you will find is a sensitive effort to understand an event of mind-boggling, irreducible complexity. There’s a lesson here: we may think we know what we are doing on far-away shores, but we are fooling ourselves. Reminds one a bit of Tolstoy’s thoughts on the philosophy of history at the end of War and Peace. Still worth a read, as is this book. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

Jaksot(1612)

Mitchell Yockelson, “Forty-Seven Days: How Pershing’s Warriors Came of Age to Defeat the German Army in WWI” (NAL Caliber, 2016)

Mitchell Yockelson, “Forty-Seven Days: How Pershing’s Warriors Came of Age to Defeat the German Army in WWI” (NAL Caliber, 2016)

In Forty-Seven Days: How Pershing’s Warriors Came of Age to Defeat the German Army in World War I (NAL Caliber, 2016), National Archives historian and forensic archivist Mitchell Yockelson reappraises...

25 Heinä 201658min

Marc Lynch, “The New Arab Wars: Uprisings and Anarchy in the Middle East” (PublicAffairs, 2016)

Marc Lynch, “The New Arab Wars: Uprisings and Anarchy in the Middle East” (PublicAffairs, 2016)

Marc Lynch is the author of The New Arab Wars: Uprisings and Anarchy in the Middle East (Public Affairs, 2016). Lynch is a professor of political science at George Washington University and blogs at t...

13 Kesä 201621min

Michael Broer, “Napoleon: Soldier of Destiny” (Pegasus, 2015)

Michael Broer, “Napoleon: Soldier of Destiny” (Pegasus, 2015)

Most biographers writing about the life and achievements of Napoleon Bonaparte have focused on his dramatic personality or his military campaigns. In Napoleon: Soldier of Destiny (Pegasus, 2015) the i...

13 Touko 201650min

Doug Bradley and Craig Werner, “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War” (U of Massachusetts Press, 2015)

Doug Bradley and Craig Werner, “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War” (U of Massachusetts Press, 2015)

From the “Ballad of the Green Berets” to “Bad Moon Rising,” the music of the Vietnam War is woven through every vets memories. Vietnam vet Doug Bradley and his fellow University of Wisconsin professor...

30 Huhti 201642min

Joshua Zimmerman, “The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945” (Cambridge UP, 2015)

Joshua Zimmerman, “The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945” (Cambridge UP, 2015)

Some books fly high above the field, making sweeping generalizations about big questions. Other books circle over a specific problem, analyzing it in great detail to say something important about a s...

18 Maalis 20161h 48min

John M. Kinder, “Paying with Their Bodies: American War and the Problem of the Disabled Veteran” (U of Chicago Press, 2015)

John M. Kinder, “Paying with Their Bodies: American War and the Problem of the Disabled Veteran” (U of Chicago Press, 2015)

John Kinder brings to life the challenges and problems faced by the disabled veteran in American history from the Civil War to the current day in his evocative book, Paying with Their Bodies: American...

18 Joulu 20151h 18min

Daniel Tortora, "Carolina in Crisis: Cherokees, Colonists, and Slaves in the American Southeast, 1756-1763" (UNC Press, 2015)

Daniel Tortora, "Carolina in Crisis: Cherokees, Colonists, and Slaves in the American Southeast, 1756-1763" (UNC Press, 2015)

Long viewed conventionally through the lens of inter-European/colonist conflict, warfare in colonial era North America is currently experiencing a resurgence as a new generation of military historians...

18 Joulu 201558min

Peter Thorsheim, “Waste into Weapons: Recycling in Britain during the Second World War” (Cambridge UP, 2015)

Peter Thorsheim, “Waste into Weapons: Recycling in Britain during the Second World War” (Cambridge UP, 2015)

In Waste into Weapons: Recycling in Britain during the Second World War (Cambridge University Press 2015), Peter Thorsheim explores the role of waste and recycling in Britain under conditions of total...

17 Joulu 201559min

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